


A Homeland Christmas

by Leblanc1 (orphan_account)



Category: Homeland
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-12 03:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9052555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Leblanc1
Summary: Carrie and Quinn find each other in December in New York. Set approximately in Season 6. I hope it makes you happy.Advent calendar fic for Christmas day. Merry merry merry!





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to all the LiveJournal regulars who have made this year so incredibly special. More on that at the end.  
> Oh, and Franny is an early reader - as you might expect - in this.

**December 1**

On the first morning, her iPhone awakens her at 6 am. She tiptoes downstairs, mindful that Franny has another half hour to sleep, more or less. It’s dark. It's drafty.

The winter night claws its bleakness into the morning.

She finds a throw from the living room and cloaks herself as she moves silently to the kitchen to make the coffee. Impulsively, she pours two. Both black.

She knocks – hard because she knows she must – and waits. She repeats it three times before he finally appears, half-drugged, maybe hung over, hair mussed, eyes remote and unfocussed.

“Here,” she says, “it’s time to wake up.”

He stares at her, resentful. She holds his gaze. He takes the coffee and shuts the door.

 

**December 2**

It’s rinse-repeat. She looks through the back window as the coffee brews.

It’s even darker than yesterday. Sleet coats the trees, cold and icy.

She knocks. And knocks again.

When he opens the door he is showered and dressed. Her head rears slightly. He takes the coffee, says “thanks,” and closes the door quietly.

She almost smiles. Almost.

 

**December 3**

On the third morning it’s Saturday. She awakens with a throb in her head. She ponders a crack in the the ceiling and wonders if she actually drank the whole bottle. It was loneliness. She knows that. It was worth it, she decides. This once. She casts the duvet aside and internally rages at the landlord who keeps the temperature at sixty at night. She pulls on a fleece and thick wool socks, grabbing a bottle of Motrin as she leaves the room. In the kitchen she distractedly fills the carafe with water and pours it into the machine.

She finally notices. In front of the canister there sits a tall red bag, Starbucks Christmas Blend, with a post-it. “I fucking hate hazelnut.”

She smiles.

 

**December 4**

On Sunday, fucking _Sunday_ , Franny wakes at five because that’s what children do sometimes. Carrie pleads with her to climb in for a cuddle but she won’t. Groggy and half-asleep, she nods when Franny asks if she can go downstairs to watch TV.

Three hours later Carrie comes down. Franny doesn’t notice. She’s buried under multiple blankets watching _Super Why_ on her iPad. Carrie’s eyes dart to the half-eaten plate of scrambled eggs on the side table.

The coffee is already made.

 

**December 5**

On the fifth morning when Carrie comes downstairs, she’s shivering despite three layers. Her weather app says it will be frigid through the week. No sleet or snow, just cold as fuck.

The coffee is made. She knew it would be. He can avoid contact this way. 

She pours two anyway because fuck him. He answers after one knock. She half expects he’d have returned to form, all disheveled and forlorn. But he answers, dressed. Hair wet, even shaved this time. He shakes his head, eyeing the mug,

“I had one,” he says.

“I know. Take another,” she says.

They stare at one another for long seconds. And he does, closing the door.

 

**December 6**

On the sixth day he opens after one knock and just takes the coffee he made with barely an acknowledgement.

Pissed, she turns and sits at the table, checks her messages.

Fuck it all. The election, Dar, Saul, Quinn. The shrink’s interminable questions about him. To all four she composes a reply with a perfunctory, “I don’t know,” because she doesn’t, and how fucked up is that? Her finger hovers over the send button. Instead, she leans back in her chair and glares out at the gradually greying sky.

When she knocks at his door, this time she’s angry.

“Did she hurt you?” she asks bluntly, insensitively. “Your mom.” 

He leans a shoulder against the door jamb and looks past her, crossing his arms. Finally. _Finally_ , he answers.

“No.”

She exhales and turns her head, then back to him, crossing her arms too.

“Did _he_?” She holds his stare during the silence. Daring him to answer. He finally nods.

Her eyes tear up but she just nods. And spares them both the discomfort by simply leaving.

To the psychiatrist’s question, “do you know of any childhood abuse?” she types “yes.”

 _At least he told me_ , she thinks. One out of four. She presses ‘send.’

 

**December 7**

On the seventh day, when she goes to rouse Franny, she discovers an empty bed. Panicked, racing downstairs she pounds at the door. When he finally opens it, she pushes past him, down to his apartment. Frantic eyes shoot to her daughter who is contentedly sitting at the beleaguered card table, a bowl in front of her.

“Mommy!” Franny declares, “Peter has Froot Loops!”

Carrie almost faints with relief and finally says to her daughter while looking directly at him. “Does he?”

He has the grace to look rueful. She almost detects amusement.

 

**December 8**

It's not as cold, really, she decides.

She’s able to leave work early and picks Franny up from school. They walk home hand-in-hand discussing in painful detail... which reindeer would be fastest, why they don’t have wings and whether Rudolph’s red nose would cast enough light for an old guy like Santa to see.

When they near the brownstone he is coming towards them from the opposite direction. Carrie almost gasps. His over coat is open revealing a black suit and grey tie.

“Did someone die?” she asks, going for humor.

He gives a high five to Franny before answering. “Worse,” he says before descending the steps into his entrance.

Franny tilts her head up. “Mommy, someone called him about a job.”

 

**December 9**

On the ninth day she gets a text from the nanny at four o’clock. “She wants to go down to the basement.”

It occurs to Carrie that she’s using her daughter as an ambassador in this tepid war of wills. But fuck it. She types, “that’s fine.”

When she arrives home at seven thirty she hears the muffled voice of the nanny giving instructions as Franny bathes.

That’s when she spots it on the coffee table. The empty Lego box sits beside the detailed structure they’d meticulously constructed. It’s monochrome. Meant for twelve-year-olds with architectural ambitions. It sits atop a piece of thick cardboard he’d found for easy transport back upstairs.

The White House in tiny white bricks.

 

**December 10**

It’s Saturday. She sleeps in. When she wakes, she knows why she was allowed the indulgence. The city is still in deep freeze and she bundles herself in four layers. This time, she simply confirms Franny’s empty bed before going downstairs.

Exasperated, it occurs to her that she’s jealous. She fires off a text. “Send her up.”

He replies within seconds: “she says ‘no.’”

Carrie flares, “Not an option. Tell her she can bring the fucking Fruit Loops.”

It takes a full minute before her phone pings. “She says it’s too cold. She likes my space heater.”

Carrie chuckles, despite herself. It’s absurd. “Tell her to suck it up. We have Christmas shopping to do.” An hour later, when she and her daughter don coats and hats for their outing, she hears the banging from the depths of the brownstone followed shortly after by the hissing of the radiator.

 

**December 11**

On Sunday morning, the house is toasty, yet Franny is missing. Again. she clunks down the stairs and bangs on his door. When he opens it she shoves past him down to his apartment, registering that there is another Lego project sitting before her daughter on the table.

She makes out that it’s the Pentagon.

“Franny c’mon. We’re getting a Christmas tree today.”

Franny looks at her mother with an identical stubborn expression. “Only if Peter comes.”

It's clear to her then that she has gifted her daughter the gene of manipulation.

There's a long silence before she accepts defeat. “So?” she asks Quinn.

By midday, the thirteen-foot tree is set up in the corner, upright and proud.

 

**December 12**

She arrives home early, at five thirty, and sets down her bags. She takes in the quiet room and the grand tree. Its branches have settled, calling out for adornment. Someone has placed a step stool beside it. Her daughter, donned in a Santa hat, bounds down from the stairs when she hears her mother’s arrival.

“Mommy! Peter said he’d come to decorate the tree.”

Carrie sighs. She’s been outplayed at every turn. “Did he? That’s nice. Where’d you get the hat?”

“I thought you got it,” Franny says as her brow furrows. “It was on my bed when I got home from school.”

Carrie smiles at her daughter as she rubs the kinks in her neck. “Franny, I’m ordering pizza. Go get Quinn.”

An hour later, she watches from the couch, legs tucked under her as they decorate the tree, and she wonders at her child who has so easily given her heart to him.

He’s essential, it turns out, for height. First, the lights are strung and Carrie is impressed by the lack of profanity, remembering her father’s tantrums at the task. The cheap round ornaments she’d ordered from Amazon are hung quickly. Franny finds the clay red haired elf she made at school and puts it on a low branch. Finally, the small box Maggie sent is opened. There are childhood ornaments that Carrie made. Even a note she’d written as an eight-year-old telling Santa her Christmas wish was for Reagan to be impeached.

Finally, Franny asks, “where’s Peter’s ornaments, Mommy?”

Carrie blanches for a second, scrambling for a resolution when she finally lands it. “It’s in the bag by the door, Franny.”

Franny hurriedly finds the bag and hauls out the decoration. “It’s a star!” she declares.

“It’s Quinn’s star, Franny.”

Franny hands it to Quinn, who climbs the step stool placing the star at the top. “Nice save, Carrie,” he says.

She laughs.

 

**December 13**

Tuesday morning, she sneaks into the kitchen a little earlier than usual, catches him in the act. It’s not ideal, having this conversation while she’s hovering at half-awake, but it’s rare she gets him alone. “Good morning,” she says. The coffee is just starting to trickle into the pot. She smiles a little tentatively. He turns and looks at her, giving the respect of recognition, at least.

“Morning,” he says.

She struggles for what to say. “Quinn, are you doing okay?”

“I’m getting there,” he says. And he kisses her forehead before departing for his apartment.

It’s enough.

 

**December 14**

On the fourteenth day, Franny asks, “but what do _you_ want for Christmas, Mommy?” This throws Carrie for a loop. Life’s not perfect, not even good all the time, but she has mostly everything she could hope for underneath one roof. But she ponders the question seriously. “I want to go to midnight mass at St. Patrick’s, Franny, and listen to the choir. I’ve never done that.”

“I’ll come with you,” Franny says cheerfully.

“No, sweetie, it’ll be too late for you.”

“Mommy, I will find a way.”

Carrie tilts her head with fondness and reverence for this smart child who echoes her without knowledge. “I can live-stream it, sweetie. Don’t worry about it.”

 

**December 15**

When she walks through the door she smells garlic and onions. Her daughter runs to her, “Guess what, Mommy? Peter's teaching me how to make bolognese!"

“Is that so?” she says. She’s not particularly surprised he’s there, but he avoids eye contact anyway. She’s pretty sure his face gets slightly flushed when she enters the kitchen because this whole setup suddenly feels so fucking twee.

“Franny, go wash up for dinner.” She instructs. Her daughter nods and bolts for the bathroom.

From the doorway she finally catches his gaze as he pours the pasta into a serving bowl.

“Why _does_ she like you so much?” she asks.

He looks down and opens a drawer. He spots the tongs and places them in the bowl, carefully securing them under the spaghetti. Finally he looks at her, leaning a hip against the counter as he crosses his arms across his chest.

“I’m pretty likable.”

She rolls her eyes. But she laughs at the memory. Anyway.

 

**December 16**

On Saturday, it’s snowed half a foot, brightening the street, and she marvels at the beauty despite herself. She is sipping the coffee he made when she hears the scraping. She moves closer to the window kneeling on the sofa arching her neck to follow the noise. Perched on the top step sits her bundled daughter, gesticulating and nodding forcefully. She watches as he pauses his shoveling to listen.

Whatever she says next makes him laugh out loud.

 

**December 17**

On Sunday Carrie and Franny make cookies. When it’s time to decorate, Franny grabs Carrie’s phone, demands she put in her passcode and texts Peter herself.

He arrives five minutes later and pauses as he looks over the cacophony of baking goods strewn around the kitchen and dining table. Carrie smears a Christmas tree cookie with pink frosting, following her daughter’s orders. Franny works on her red-headed angel.

Quinn surprises Carrie by gently wiping the flour off her nose before he sits and grabs a cookie from the pile.

“That one didn’t turn out,” Franny tells him. “It doesn’t have a shape.”

“It’s fine, Franny-pants,” he says, mixing several frosting colors together into something that comes close to black.

Five minutes later Carrie looks over at his cookie. “Quinn, is that a _gun_?”

He holds it up proudly for both Carrie and Franny to see. “It’s a festive Glock. See? It has a red trigger.”  

Carrie groans. Franny laughs, delighted.

 

**December 18**

After dinner instead of cleaning and departing, as has become his habit, he takes her up on her offer for another beer. When she tucks Franny into bed his eyes flick over the tree before resting on one ornament.

“Why Joan of Arc?” he asks when she comes downstairs.

“It was my confirmation name.”

“Ah. Mine was St. Jude.”

“ _You_ got confirmed?” she says in disbelief.

“Carrie, I was a foster kid, not a fuckin’ delinquent.”

She nods, digesting that. Finally she asks, “What did St. Jude do?”

“I don’t remember, but he’s the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. My foster mother wasn’t my biggest fan.”

She smiles. “Yeah, well, I wanted Mary Magdalene but it got vetoed. My CCD teacher wasn’t _my_ biggest fan.”

 

**December 19**

Franny appears at his door with construction paper, markers, and glitter, demanding assistance with cards. He obliges, perching her at the card table. He multitasks, emailing until she asks him, “how long did you and Mommy work together?”

“A few years.”

“Did you like each other?”

Quinn pauses, searching the blue eyes so like her mother’s. “Yeah, but we yelled at each other a lot.”

Franny nods and says, “Mommy says we yell the most at the people we love.”

 

**December 20**

When Carrie tucks her in Franny looks up at her mother. “What’s security, Mommy?”

Carrie’s brow furrows. “Um, it’s about keeping people safe, sweetie. Why do you ask?”

“He got the job.”

“What job?”

“Head of security.”

Carrie’s head rears back slightly. “How do you know?”

“I read it on an email when we were making cards.”

Carrie looks away and mutters to herself, “I’ll be damned,” before curiosity gets the better of her.

“Do you know where?”

“Nations united, or something.”

 

**December 21**

The first day of winter is a Wednesday, it turns out, and that seems about right to Carrie. Franny comes home from school with snowflakes cut from wax paper and hangs them in the windows to catch the early-fading light.

“Do you want to bring him one?” Carrie asks.

Franny shakes her head, surprising her mother. “Mommy, he doesn’t have big windows.”

Carrie frowns, taking the point, and Franny disappears for a few minutes. Quinn emerges from the basement, his large hand engulfing Franny’s small one. “You ever wait for the shortest day of the year and then miss it?” he quotes, prompting a raised eyebrow from Carrie.

“We should plan something,” she answers wryly. “Quinn, I didn’t take you for a Gatsby fan.”

“Well, Fitzgerald was in love with a crazy woman,” he says seriously, then, “I empathize.”

Carrie’s mouth opens and closes while she decides how to react, but in the end she just laughs.

None of this is news, exactly.

 

**December 22**

"Did you _ever_ believe in God?” she asks him as she seals a present with Scotch tape. How they got here, drinking spiked eggnog and wrapping gifts at her dining table while talking theology, she will never know.

“Not really.” He says as he cuts the paper for another Lego box. The silence is warm and lasts for a while.

Finally he says, “you can’t really believe in a virgin birth, Carrie.”

It’s a statement, not a question but she leans back in her chair and looks at him. “You know what my dad use to say?”

He says nothing but he sets down the scissors.

“He said we’re all children of God but that some people are closer than others.” She chuckles to herself thinking of him and the memory. “He told me Gandhi and Martin Luther King and Mother Theresa and _especially_ Jesus were just that much closer than most of us. He told me that was enough for him.”

“So no Immaculate Conception, then.”

She picks up the scissors and hands them to him, blades facing forward. “Don’t parse, Quinn. Cut the fucking paper.”

He obeys, happy.

 

**December 23**

On the next night of gift wrapping, he presses her on the issue, and she’s happy he’s even considered it.

“So, where do Havel and Lennon and, I dunno, Bono and Geldof rank on the Mathison-Jesus-God hierarchy?”

She cocks her head and improvises. “Up there. Havel probably makes the grade but the rock stars did too many drugs.”

“And where do you rank, Carrie?”

She pauses, surprised at the question. It lingers in the air. Finally, she takes a chance, “below you.”

His eyebrows raise as he scoffs. “How’s that? Wanna see my kill list?”

She’s quiet for a few seconds, considering what to say next but knowing it matters. “You love. Unselfishly. I don’t know how to do that, Quinn. I'm trying to learn.”

The seconds tick by. Finally, he quips, “I just want a king size bed in the sky-suite. Think you and Frank can arrange that?”

She smiles... but there are no words.

He finally rises, circling the table and puts his hand to the side of her face. His thumb traces her lips before he leans down to kiss her. Soft, lingering, hopeful.

“You’re a hard woman to love, Carrie Mathison. 'G'night.”

She laughs. It’s perfectly imperfect. But perfect.

 

**Christmas Eve**

She had to work until noon, followed by an interminable midday office holiday party.

At 3 o'clock his text comes through. “I’ll pick you up at 11.”

She replies, Carrie fashion, “What?”

Her phone pings five seconds later. “Midnight mass, C. I’m under orders. Nanny’s booked.”

She wonders when exactly she lost complete control of her household.

___

 

He emerges from the basement, early, of course. She descends the stairs ten minutes later and laughs at him, not unkindly, but it’s been awhile.

He deflects. “Six hours on the cross. Jesus deserves a sport jacket.”

Her eyes briefly darken and he knows what she almost says. About Berlin. Instead he leans forward a few inches from her ear, "Only the good die young."

He takes her hand as they leave the brownstone.

 

 

**Christmas**

When mass is over she tells him she wants to stay awhile. The crowd files out, incense lingering in the air, the organ is still playing _Silent Night_. At some point his arm had come to rest behind her on the pew and her head made it to his shoulder.

She finally says, of all things, “you took communion.”

He looks down at her. “Yeah, well, when in Rome. You’re not gonna convince me I’m digesting Jesus, though.”

She smiles, a hand rising to his cheek. “How about miracles, then?”

“We can negotiate. What do you have in mind?”

“You, here. Alive. With me.”

He nods slowly before kissing her, soft and searching, reverent. “I’ll give you that one.”

___

 

When they make love it is more soulful than she’d ever imagined. Intense and passionate but laced with humor. She marvels at that. How he can take her to a place that no one else ever has but keep her grounded. When he enters her body, brushing the hair from her moist brow, she finally says it out loud. “I love you.”

___

 

At 5 o'clock Christmas morning he untangles himself and quietly pulls on his undershirt and pants. He kisses her lightly and whispers, “Christmas isn’t the day for Franny to find me here." Carrie rolls onto her back and murmurs, “kay…”

___

 

Two hours later, the living room is a mess of strewn wrapping paper and tissue and Franny in the middle of it all, unable to commit to a present to play with first.

He brews the coffee and hands her a mug. They toast.

“Merry Christmas, Carrie.”

“Merry Christmas, Quinn.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Enormous thanks to @ascloseasthis for her editing, inspiration and incredible spirit. And for writing December 21 when I was out of ideas! A shout out to the super spectacular @frangipaniflower for making this HL Advent fic adventure happen. And to @shopboughtcoke (aka @homemadelemonade) for her amazing fic In the Light: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8572729/chapters/19654030. It was the inspiration for this fic. PS Apologies to the Aussies and happy Boxing Day! I tried to get this up in time for you... best laid plans and all that.
> 
> Finally, thank you, LiveJournal regulars! You have brought so much joy to me this year with your fics, your humor, your insight, your wisdom, your cultural diversity and friendship. I am awed almost daily. It was a year ago to the day that I started writing Making it Right in a haze of tears and in abject grief for Peter Quinn. What a difference a year makes. Thank you, ladies, for making me post that fic and keeping me writing. It's been a true gift. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!


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